3

You worship Satan!" I exploded. "Ferdinand was sacrificed to a demon by his own father!" I saw it!

A look of understanding spread across Piotrek's swollen face. "

We worship God, Tomek. Unlike you Christians. And, no offense, we do it better."

His impudence left me completely stunned for a moment. Then rage filled me with its corrosive content.

"What are you talking about!" I screamed. "This man cold-bloodedly cut his three-year-old son in half, wallowed in his blood and entrails like a whore in a herbal bath, summoning something disgusting that emerged from the darkness, and you say God prefers this to the Eucharist?!"

I took a step toward him, heedless of the danger. I pointed my finger at him, like a prosecutor in court.

"Or maybe you also killed a child as a sacrifice to your monstrous God?" "I said.

He shuddered. I must have hit a nerve.

"Listen, priest," his voice lost some of its gentleness. "You carry within you the pride of your church, so I don't know if you'll understand me, but I'll try.

You claim my God is monstrous, but it was you who made him into a true monster. In a fit of unimaginable pride, one that Lucifer himself would envy, you forced him through the sieve of your own morality. What got through, you deemed good and beautiful, and called God; what remained at the bottom, you rejected with disgust as satanic. You vivisected the divine nature, taking with you only the shadow of the Creator.

But God cannot be divided like the carcass of a pig. Precisely because you constantly despise and teach hatred that part of the divine nature that doesn't fit your neurotic notions, you drag it along like a hump you refuse to acknowledge." Countless crimes committed in the name of Jesus, the Crusades, religious wars... Your holy theologians delighted in overseeing the work of the Holy Inquisition, feasting on the groans of tortured children of God...

I interrupted him, shocked by the perversity of his argument. "

You're talking nonsense, Satanist. Knowing God is a constant process in which He reveals Himself to us. The inspired writers of the Old Testament moved away from the concept of God as the author of good and evil, towards knowing the good Father, who in Jesus Christ revealed Himself as Love!"

"That's your mistake," Piotrek retorted. "Over time, you turned the true, Almighty God into the very idea of what you understood by the concept of goodness and perfection. What you didn't like about him, you considered personal evil. However, since there can't be two Gods, you reached for the religions of more culturally developed nations and borrowed Satan, a treacherous creature who brought evil and misfortune into the world. You went further than the dualists, who considered so-called evil also a divine element, though separate from the good element.

" "Don't you see the primitiveness of this idea?" he continued. "In the Old Covenant, there was the serpent and the foolish Eve; in the New, we have the devil and demons, who delight in paralytics and pigs, and an even more foolish Judas." Even today, you consider the demon something infinitely primitive and dull, an imbecile who possesses a person, curses, curses, and with an animalistic cry abandons his host out of fear of Jesus' power.

"God is love."

Peter touched the bloody bandage on his face.

"God is everything. The power of love and killing. The Church teaches that God can be known by contemplating his work. Unfortunately, you are not concerned with knowing the full truth. Even a child sees the beauty of nature, even in its ruthless struggle for existence. For you, it is a consequence of original sin; for us, it is an inalienable part of the whole. The true God does not have to be a perfect, pacifist feeling, like your sick view of the world.

You spoke of Jesus. He too resorted to violence, but in a wrong way. As the Son of God and Lord of history, he could do anything, which is why he made others his killers and himself his victim. Wasn't Saint Francis, who deserved the stigmata, a masochist like his Master? He tortured his body, cut himself, refused food, avoided hygiene, and this finally killed him...

By the way, we share the same logic. God the Father delivers his Son into the hands of torturers, in other words, he kills him, using the hands of others. Simon kills his son Ferdinand with his own hands, wanting to honor that part of God's inseparable nature that you have made degenerate and filthy. God the Father kills a child for the salvation of the world—Simon murders his son so that God might be appeased. Jesus rises from the dead; Ferdinand is devoured by the monster you created, Cain, brought to life by your selective, false love.

"Enough!" I shouted, covering my ears. "I can't listen to this! I loved you like a brother, Peter. Today I regret saving you. How can you be so stupid?!"

Piotr smiled understandingly. A trickle of blood seeped from beneath the bandage, but he seemed oblivious. He spoke calmly, with conviction.

"I still love you. Ever since you first visited me at home, when you promised me undying friendship and care, I've considered you a brother. I was even happy when you became a priest—I saw the happiness in your eyes, and that was the most important thing to me.

I lost all desire to talk. That man disgusted me. He was a liar, a cynical monster, a blasphemer who attacked my love for God, who wanted to take away my faith. I thought of all the years we shared a deep friendship. I recalled all the confidences and his advice, which I tried to put into practice. A deep sadness overwhelmed me. Unwanted tears welled in my eyes.

"Our friendship was the worst mistake of my life," I said. "Fortunately, it's over. I'm going to pack my things and leave immediately. I'll inform the police in Warsaw. Who knows what horrors you're hiding in the basement of your house..." "

I'm sorry, but that's impossible," Piotrek replied, pulling his hand from his pocket. He held a small-caliber pistol in it. "The Lord has other plans for you."

"Plans?" I shouted. "What plans could the devil possibly have for me?"

Piotrek shook his head in resignation. He had clearly lost hope of explaining the doctrine of his faith to me.

"As you well know, Ewa and I cannot have children. The Lord is demanding: He gives us everything we ask of Him, but He categorically demands His sacrifice. You know, let's count like Jews," he tried to joke, but his left eye was anything but amused. His gaze held deep sadness and absolute determination. "This should have been our son... But the Lord made an exception. We love you like a brother. You're thirty-three years old... Christ's Age, as you priests speak among themselves. The Lord has a sense of humor, so..."

"You want to sacrifice me," I finished for him. I was terrified.

"It was supposed to be completely different... but, yes.

The decision was made. I, too, had made my decision."

"So why are you aiming at me? You can shoot me.

" "It's a tranquilizer gun. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, when Ewa returns from Warsaw. Don't take this personally. Balance must be maintained..."

I beat him by a second. As he squeezed the trigger, I performed a feint I'd learned in boxing school, simultaneously swinging a Scout's fin knife, which I kept hidden in my shirt sleeve. Everyone knew about my boxing aspirations; no one knew about the hours of knife-throwing training. It was my second hobby, one I never gave up. I was convinced that one day this skill would save my life..."

A bullet grazed my left shoulder. A wave of weakness immediately washed over me. I felt like a passenger sucked out of a damaged plane. I felt as if I were in a complete vacuum: I couldn't draw air into my lungs, and I had lost complete control of my body. As I fell to the floor, I saw in passing that the knife had ended its flight in the thin neck of my former friend. Then I lost consciousness. I woke up several hours later, sore and disoriented.

The first thing I noticed in the dim light of the dying candles were the intricate patterns decorating the fluffy carpet that had cushioned my fall. The second thing was the soles of Piotr's black slippers—they were clean, as if he'd never worn them. I was reminded of hundreds of slippers fresh from the store, adorning the feet of grandfathers, fathers, husbands laid in coffins... The sight invariably evoked in me a feeling of disorientation and the absurdity of life, lending a tinge of uncertainty to the ritual words of prayer. The men were being fitted with new shoes, even though they wouldn't be going anywhere in them. I staggered to my feet. Dear Piotr wouldn't be going anywhere either, I thought, glancing at the bloody handle of the knife. The rest was lodged deep in his windpipe. I approached the corpse, suppressing my disgust. I kicked the gun with my toes; it had fallen from his delicate hand. I tried not to step in the pool of dried blood that flowed profusely from the wound, creating a vast, dark halo around the corpse's head. I had to satisfy my sudden curiosity. To do so, I pulled a tissue from my pants pocket and wiped the blood from the knife handle. With a decisive jerk, I pulled the blade from the dead man's throat and then pry open the bandage on his right cheek. I saw livid, swollen flesh surrounding a sunken eyelid, from under which flowed a stream of disgusting fluid—a mixture of blood, pus, and tears—ending its brief course in the livid mouth, frozen in a speechless cry of surprise. In the flickering candlelight, the corpse seemed to weep over its fate. "As life, so death," I whispered in response to this thought. Jesus had commanded the women of Jerusalem to weep over the fate of their children, who were drawing down upon themselves the wrath of a just God. The man whose name I wanted to erase from memory deserved, like no other, God's wrath, of which I was merely the executor. I felt no regret or remorse. When I threw the knife at my only friend, I was already a changed man. I understood that God had placed me in his path many years ago, not to save a miserable, satanic life, but to deal definitively with the filth that desecrated His holy name.